Verse 5

¹When the Bhagavan Visnu, whose very mark is sacrifice, took his stride there, the nail of the big toe of his left foot broke open the upper shell of the egg, and through that hole the stream of water outside came in. Reddened by the saffron pollen washed off his lotus feet, it carries away the stain and the fault of every world, and touching it makes a man clean. It is spoken of, in words whose sense goes unnoticed, as the very foot-water of the Bhagavan. After an enormous stretch of time, marked out by a thousand ages, it came down on the head of heaven, at what they call the station of Visnu. ²There Dhruva, the son of Uttanapada, whose vow is a hero's and who is greatest among the Lord's own, still carries it on his head with the greatest reverence, saying, This is the water of the lotus feet of the god of our house. Hour after hour his inmost heart is soaked through by a yoga of devotion to the Bhagavan that keeps rising in him; his two eyes, shut like buds and helpless with longing, spill clear tears, and the hair stands up in clusters all over him.

³Then the seven sages, who know what that water can do, carry it to this day on their coils of matted hair with great honour, as though release itself had come to them and they were men who wanted release. For them the last attainment of austerity is only this much: by winning an unbroken yoga of devotion to the Bhagavan, Vasudeva, the self of all, they have let every other end and every other course for the self go by. ⁴Then it comes down by the road of the gods, crowded with many thousands of ten millions of flying cars, covers the circle of the moon, and falls on the seat of Brahma. ⁵There it breaks into four and, running out in the four directions under four names, enters the lord of streams and rivers: Sita, Alakananda, Caksu and Bhadra.